The Diablo that didn't age like fine wine

Diablo III is very nearly here with its' May 15 release date. Blizzard has a tendency to release its games only when they're ready. I think that's commendable personally and I'd much rather wait for a great game than see something released before it's ready. Two weeks ago I started up the first Diablo (hereafter referred to as D1 with similar abbreviations for the sequels) with the idea of going from beginning to end of the games in anticipation of D3. I completed D1 a bit ago and I have recently started D2. For now I wanted to give some impressions of the game I've finished and then do D2 later. Once D3 arrives I'll certainly be writing about it to some degree.

When D1 first came out I thought it was great. My first experience was playing the demo which only had some of the monastery to explore and the warrior was the only available character. I wouldn't say it blew me away (I'd certainly played better games by that point, with Ultima VII: The Black Gate and Final Fantasy VI coming easily to mind), but it was still pretty fun. One thing about me is I tend to like games that keep it simple, and D1 easily achieves simplicity. While I'm not a game developer, from my experience in other areas it seems like simplicity is hard to achieve - not easy. You have to trim all unnecessary elements yet maintain the delicious creamy center. For its time I think D1 was certainly a yummy treat, but to me it has grown stale since then.

I found it repetitive, monotonousness and plodding. Yes, D2 could probably be described as repetitive too, but D2 is still fun for me as I'll talk about more when I do a post dedicated to it. The slow walking speed in D1 makes it excruciatingly slow. In dungeons it is more forgivable because positioning is a large part of strategy in the game, but moving around town is a pain especially when it comes to visiting the witch on the opposite side of the area everything else is in. Since I did a run through the games primarily to refresh myself of the lore and setting, I chose to go through D1 as the warrior (for reasons obvious to anyone who paid even slight attention to D2's story). I'm thinking I might have had more fun if I'd played the rogue or sorcerer, but it's hard to say for sure. Back in the game's day I played through them all and I recall each had their areas of difficulties. My first full run through the game as a sorcerer took some creativity on my part to kill Diablo at the end. In comparison, it was a grueling slog through hell (literally) for my warrior to reach Diablo, but when I finally reached the big bad it was almost laughable for all the resistance he presented. I pretty much used my weapon with knock-back effect to push him against a wall and I then systematically sliced and diced without allowing him barely any openings to get a hit in. As a final boss he's certainly odd in that it's much more dangerous to be at a distance than right in front of him. I had no reason to stay away, but in the time it took to approach him he used his Armageddon spell repeatedly to lower my health enough to almost warrant the use of a single health potion. I had more trouble with going one-on-one with some of his mooks on his level, let alone the groups of 10 or so they like to come in. One particular bitch of an advocate made me chase him literally across the entire level teleporting around.

That brings me to a rant on ranged attackers in D1, who I think deserve a very special, apparently lengthy mention. I dislike them very, very, very much. Now I was moving along through the game at a good pace through the monastery, it wasn't particularly fun but it was smooth sailing, and then I got to a level of the catacombs where two thirds of the enemies were goat men with bows. Partly it was my fault because I was using a strong two-handed weapon and they made baby swiss cheese out of me almost instantly. I nearly gave up, but then I discovered (probably rediscovered) that having a shield is a much, much better idea for a warrior despite any drop in attack strength. I went from dying nearly instantly to being able to stand in a room with more than a dozen of the goat men, still chugging health potions at a modest rate but able to survive. So I could stay alive, but I still wanted to be able to kill things I came across so I could explore. I've come back again to the slow movement speed and while I said I didn't mind so much in dungeons, this instance is the exception. It seems no matter what I could barely get a single attack (note, attack not a hit) in before whatever one I was aiming at would move away. Repeat as necessary until all will to play the game has gone is essentially what the game became for me. The only way I could reliably kill them is to chase them carefully and trap them in a corner. If that were a routine occasionally encountered than okay, but generally I was dealing with rooms of 10 or more of these guys and while I slowly eliminated them one by one the rest were pelting me with arrows. While my shield blocked nearly all of them, my movement was extremely choppy from doing so. It was extraordinarily not fun. Somehow I did make it through that level and continued on with the game, and I at least did get some reward because the caves that came afterward were by far my favorite part of the game.

While the caves still had ranged attackers, they were of the sort that don't run away and generally just threw out some attacks while closing to melee range. Between the less-claustrophobic areas and being able to handle large groups of enemies without having to micro manage every action, the game actually became fun for three levels. When I reached level four of the caves I found the floor flooded with succubi and it was the bow-goat men all over again except now my shield was useless due to their magic attacks and my resistances didn't help. Very fortunately, I found the stairs down quickly and just bypassed most of the area. The hell levels were very dangerous, but manageable. By the time I reached the inevitable floor full of more succubi-type enemies (blood witches?) I was lucky enough to have equipment to provide the max level of magic resistance. Tracking them down carefully one-by-one was still unpleasant, but manageable.

So I proceeded until I reached Diablo's level and then came the ultimate slap. I was extremely dangerous and well protected by this point, all my resistances were maxed and I had made duplicitous use of elixirs, and yet for all my trouble I still had a horrible time clearing out all the advocates in the area. It didn't matter they could barely hurt me, it didn't matter I could badly hurt them, because having a swarm of presumably powerful magicians teleporting around like gnats often before I could land a single hit was miserable. My dexterity was maxed by this point and my weapon greatly increased accuracy, and still. When it comes to expressing how 'fun' it is to chase down all the various ranged enemies, I feel I need to use a colorful sentence along the lines of what Zero Punctuation's Yahtzee often uses, to the effect of: "Expletive buggery cripes expletive." All I can say it no, no this is not good game design and no this is not fun.

Some content in this post is being used under the fair use exception of copyright law. Diablo is copyright of Blizzard Entertainment.

Dash forward with X

Recently I started playing the Mega Man X Collection and went halfway through it up to Mega Man X3 (hereafter referred to as X3 and so on).

X1 is pretty great. I almost don't know what else to say about it. A beginning of a new series, not quite revolutionary but polished, well designed and fun. For me there's a strong amount amount of nostalgia with it, especially the very beginning on the highway. I'm not going in depth on it, but if that's what you want check out this video by Egoraptor on Sequelitis. He really gets into the fine details of approaching how it was designed. The maneuverability of X is always what my mind latches onto when I consider the game alongside the classic series. I thought the PSP remake, Mega Man Maverick Hunter X, was very well done. Vile, in particular, could not have been handled better. It would have been nice if Capcom had continued remaking the games in this fashion.

After thinking about it for awhile, I'd have to say I wouldn't consider X2 to really be an improvement on X1. Sure, air dashing is cool and a few other little things are nice to have in the mix too like the Cx4 chip graphic capabilities. What I'm getting at here is X2's relatively equal to X1 but with different levels, music, bosses, story and weapons. It's more of the same, which is to say it's more of the same awesome, and to me that's still awesome. One criticism I've had of many game reviewers over the years is the speed and harshness they will come down on a game, particularly a sequel to a game they otherwise liked, for no other reason than it doesn't do something amazingly different. I can understand the idea of wanting to see gaming evolve, but it's no reason by itself to be extra critical of a game. Note that I'm speaking in general here, not about critical reaction to X2 specifically. The thought simply occurred to me, as it likely will again.

Right up there with air dashing is also the buster upgrade that lets X use two charged shots. One minor complaint I have is that I didn't find any of the special weapons useful at all outside of using them against a boss to exploit a weakness or to access certain items hidden in the stages. In comparison some of the X1 special weapons were particularly useful to pull out against enemies in multiple situations, but in X2 I tend to use double charge shots almost exclusively.

X3 is perhaps the game between X1 and X6 I have probably had the least amount of contact with, because until the PS2 collection I never owned a version of it. I know I rented it once around the time it came out and thoroughly went through it (though I probably didn't know about the Z saber trick then). One negative to the version on the collection I ended up owning is it's the PS1 version of the game, meaning it has animated cut scenes the SNES version didn't have and the music has been remixed. Unfortunately, the music was remixed very badly. While the sound capabilities of the SNES are certainly dated, there's plenty of good music from its games that still sound good as is the case with X1 and X2. The PS1 version of X3 I have though has reduced most of the music to annoying noise and was so bad for one or two levels I turned the sound down so I wouldn't have to hear it, but that's the fault of the PS1 version and not the original. X3 music on the SNES is comparable to the earlier entries in quality.

Other than music, I would say X3 feels like a slightly weaker entry than X1 or X2, but that's not to say it's not good. I would pin the reason for this on the stages, which don't seem quite as fun to me as its predecessors'. The eight mavericks are a good bunch though and I like how most of them can still put up a bit of a fight even if you're exploiting their weaknesses, unlike X2's. The confrontation with Sigma in X3 is epic in my mind. To me it feels like the ultimate showdown between X and Sigma at his absolute strongest. Sure, they fight again but besides Sigma never seeming quite 100 percent again, the following games all seem to have something going on that offsets his importance.

I don't think I'll be getting to X4 or beyond at the moment, but I'll share a few thoughts on those. X4 is notable for probably having the highest production value for a game in the series relative to its time, although Capcom could certainly have improved on the English voice acting. It's one of the best when it comes to gameplay. X4 also introduced Zero being fully playable, a feature I certainly enjoyed. For reasons I don't entirely remember, I recall being annoyed with a few things from X5. It is notable for having what I consider X's best armor, the Falcon Armor, and story lines built up through most of the series finally have their payoff. X6 seemed to do its best to mess up that payoff to the detriment of the Mega Man Zero series, but I don't recall anything bad about the gameplay. The battle with Sigma is oddly enough one of my favorites, but beyond that there's one compliment I can pay the game: it's not X7. Unfortunately, X7 is what it is, which is a mess. Axl was probably the only decent thing to come from it. I have never played X8, but it sounds like it's worth a try someday.

Some content in this post is being used under the fair use exception of copyright law. Mega Man X is copyright of Capcom.

Easter memories of Castlevania and monsters

Happy belated Easter. In my previous post I mentioned I would be posting a "somewhat amusing gaming-related anecdote from my childhood" and I now intend to do so. I'll eventually be talking about a game from one of my all-time favorite video game series, Castlevania.

The story goes back to the year 1991 (I think) and I was 7 years old at the time. Easter came around again as it had before. I enjoyed coloring eggs, getting some candy and maybe some type of special treat, but as far as holidays went I don't think it was ever as important to me as Halloween or Christmas. As far as I'm concerned, the Easter I'm thinking of was by far the best and I owe it to my parents (or the Easter Bunny). That year my parents had some surprises for me in colored plastic eggs and then hid the eggs all over the house. Now it could have been candy in those eggs and even that would have been great, but by some amazing inspiration my parents decided to fill the eggs with little Monster in my Pocket toys.

You might need to have also been a boy around the same time to know what I'm talking about, but they were these little rubber toys of classic monsters. I think they changed and became more complex as the franchise continued, but the ones in the eggs were from the first series of toys. Small, approximately 1 inch tall, and one solid color (awesomely red, nearly lime, slightly lighter purple than I would prefer, and blatantly yellow is how I would now describe the original colors they came in). I loved them then and even now I still think they're pretty cool when it comes to toys. There was something very memorable about exploring the house I'd always lived in on my own scavenger hunt, like everything was transformed into something more special than its everyday form. Simply speaking, it was a magical experience for a dorky child.

I scoured every nook of the house I could think of to come up with what in my mind was a great collection of the tiny monsters (probably about 12 or maybe less, but I certainly would later get more at stores). What made all this even more memorable was my video game interest at the time happened to be Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. I've come again to a point where my memory is a bit hazy, because I can't recall if I also received the game as some type of Easter gift, received it sometime earlier or if I just was currently renting the game from Blockbuster while I had extra time off school. Regardless, I was into the game at the time and it worked very well to have a bunch of tiny monsters not unlike the mostly single color enemies in the game. The natural progression was to play with the Monster in my Pocket toys as if they were Dracula and his creatures, which I indeed remember doing. I used an old He-man play set of Castle Grayskull, acquired at a yard sale or flea market sometime previously, as Dracula's castle. Not sure what I used for a Belmont, but I'm sure I figured something out. Maybe monsters and such may not sound holiday appropriate, but to a 7-year-old boy it was the best Easter ever.

Castlevania is indeed one of my favorite video game series. I'll admit even though I was psyched about Castlevania III back in 1991, it doesn't rank particularly high with me now compared to other entries. Yes, it was good, and every now and then I get the urge to go back and play it (an urge I've resisted the last several times it crept up). It doesn't have quite as much nostalgia for me as the first two entries and I enjoyed many of the ones that came after it more. For a series sometimes known for its difficult, the third may well be either the hardest or a close second (not counting two obscure remakes of the first game that never made it to the U.S.). When I'm in the mood for Castlevania again, I'd diffidently like to go into more detail on the series.

There was actually a Monster in my Pocket video game for the NES and it was made by Konami, the creator of the Castlevania series. I never owned it, though I did play it once upon a time, but I don't have any thoughts to share. Just wanted to mention it because it'd be remiss not to given the content of this post.

Some content in this post is being used under the fair use exception of copyright law. Monster in my Pocket is copyright of Matchbox. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse is copyright of Konami.

The story behind the name

For awhile now I have thought about creating a blog (in fact once I technically did start one, but never did a single thing with it). One barrier to go through with starting was I had absolutely no idea about a name. I suppose if I were to really force myself to brainstorm, I'd come up with something half decent I could live with. A really good name though? Something I would be 100 percent happy with? No clue.

No clue at least until just last weekend. I had come home and because I was in a bit of a Mega Man mood, I started up Mega Man 10. When it first came out I played it about four times through, but one of the features I was most interested in was not available as downloadable content at the time. I speak of Bass mode. Maybe saying it like that might make it sound a lot more impressive than it is, but to me it's a big deal. Bass is my favorite character in the Mega Man franchise, but more on him later.

Of course Bass mode has been available for purchase in the game for some time now, but until now I hadn't felt like going back to the game. I will say I enjoyed playing Mega Man 10 as Bass, although it seems like his style of gameplay didn't transition quite as well to a (pseudo) 8-bit game. Firing in all directions wasn't quite as useful as it sounds or as useful as I remember it being in Mega Man & Bass. Even though it is awesome to blow the shield out of a Sniper Joe's hands with Bass' rapid fire, the unusual challenge of destroying Mettools with Bass' weaker blaster while not taking a hit was irksome.

Anyway, the name 8-bit Smirk came to me after defeating one of the robot masters. For the sake of a better story, let's say I just finished off Sheep Man. Bass struck his pose on the screen while he absorbed the robot master's weapon, and even though I had seen the sprite of him doing so several times before I mentally commented to myself: "8-bit Smirk." In my mind there are no better words to describe the expression on Bass' pixelated face. My next thought was, for some reason or another, how the same words would make an awesome name for a blog. The idea of everything I wanted to do with a blog began to hatch in my mind. Why did I think smirk rather than smile or grin when I first unconsciously commented on Bass' expression? Because I know Bass and I know his character. In short, he's a bastard.

Bass falls within the same tired character archetype of the protagonist's rival (an annoyingly common archetype in anything related to Japanese animation), which in fancier language might be termed a foil. He wants to beat Mega Man to prove he's stronger, blah blah, he's a rebel, blah blah, he's not a good guy but he often ends up fighting evil (Dr. Wily), and blah. Despite all that there's still something about him that makes me appreciate him as a character even though I'm aware of his limitations (in terms of his peers, nobody in the classic Mega Man series is really complex). I like how completely irreverent he is to his creator, Dr. Wily, and I like how utterly thick headed he is. His character design also really stands out within the classic series. I like him even though I probably couldn't completely justify why. That and his inspirational smirk are the reasons I plan to make him somewhat of a mascot for this blog.

A note on Bass' name: it is pronounced like the musical term. Quite a few character names in the classic Mega Man series are music related. Bass has a robot dog for a partner named Treble (Bass and Treble). In Japan they are known as Forte and Gospel, but I like their localized names better. They're the names I was first familiar with, I think they're more mainstream musical terms that work better together as a pair, and because when I think of bass sound the word obnoxious comes to mind (it fits his personality).

Now besides being what I consider a good name, 8-bit Smirk also conveys some things about my blog I believe will be characteristic of it. The first part more or less should mean I will be dealing with games all the way back (but not exclusively) to the 8-bit era. I could be talking about the oldest games in the NES' library, to games yet to be released on current systems, and everything in between (whatever I feel like). The second part of the name will probably be revealing about my personality, but I'll leave that to be seen as I go along.

I have several posts I plan to make soon. Easter Sunday is nearly here and I have a somewhat amusing gaming-related anecdote of a memory from my childhood to impart. Besides Mega Man 10, I also recently played through Mega Man X to X3 and have some thoughts on the overall X series. I have been playing Kirby's Return to Dream Land with a friend and I plan to make that game one of the first (or the first) I review here. Diablo III is on the horizon and I am eagerly awaiting it by going back to replay the preceding games in the series yet again. An overview of some of my favorites within all of gaming is also something I want to do soon. So until next time...

Be awesome; stay awesome.

Some content in this post is being used under the fair use exception of copyright law. Mega Man 10 is copyright of Capcom. Bass is copyright of Capcom.

Introduction

Greetings. Welcome to my blog. My name is Ben Baird and for some reason or another you have stumbled onto my blog. Generally I plan to be writing about whatever I feel like, but overall the majority of the content will be video game related. I'm going to start rambling on now for a time about myself, my interests and to further explain my blog, 8-bit Smirk. The warning is given: it will be long and of dubious interest.

I graduated in 2007 from Central Michigan University with a major in journalism. Why did I choose journalism? Before going to CMU, I attended Henry Ford Community College and while there I struggled for about two years to figure out what I should pursue (anthropology electives I had there were fun). I liked stories, reading and writing, so I tried an English major to start. Eventually I decided I should change my major to something that would offer expanded career opportunities (to put it delicately). So I switched majors to education and made English my minor. The education thing didn't last long though. I went into it thinking I could be an English teacher, but after only a semester I decided I wasn't cut out for teaching since I was never good at public speaking and explaining things verbally was also a weakness (writer). Next I tried the college's single journalism class, liked it, and when it was over I asked the professor to recommend a school where I could have a journalism major. I ended up going to CMU for journalism and I made the choice to stick with it.

My dream job was (and is) to review video games. When I was at HFCC, I did some game reviews for the Mirror News student publication, but beyond that it's an interest I have to do something more with my primary hobby. I didn't have strong expectations this was actually what I would do with journalism as a career, although it's certainly been a thought.

I could talk some more about my experiences at CMU, which were good, or about my career in journalism afterward, but I think I'll hold off on those narratives. Suffice to say I managed to form a relationship with the exact newspaper I had my eye on, the News-Herald, which is the local Downriver newspaper I grew up with. I consider myself lucky to have received the opportunities I've had with the News-Herald, the Press & Guide, and with the overall Journal Register Company. Currently I am the police and court reporter covering Washtenaw County for Heritage Media within the same parent company as the previously mentioned newspapers. It's a position I have held since November 2011, and it has worked out good so far. The stories I write typically appear among the eight Heritage West newspapers, which can be accessed at heritage.com (my Twitter page is a reliable way to find links to all my stories @BenBaird1). While I have the option to make 8-bit Smirk my staff blog, I am choosing to keep it my own project.

My history with video games is also something I would like to very briefly overview. For me it all began one Christmas morning with an NES, the copy of Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt it came with, and the Legend of Zelda. Gaming has remained a big part of my life since and, while some might disagree, I think it's an important part. To quote my friend Elena: "I consider it time well spent." Video games are becoming more and more mainstream, but it seems to me there are still many who belittle and disrespect gaming as an entertainment industry.

Playing games is an interactive experience. It's not about sitting there and staring at a screen. For me, it's about visiting other (or alternate) worlds and exploring them, whether it's a massive and immersive epic like the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, a sandbox game like those of the Assassin's Creed or Grand Theft Auto series, a traditional RPG like those of the Dragon Quest series, or a simple side-scrolling platformer like the aforementioned Super Mario Bros.

Do I love all games? No. If you're trying to figure out how big of a dork I am this next bit might clarify, but I've never been interested in sports; so as you might imagine I also have no interest in sport games. Puzzle games are also something I'm not fond of, unless I'm in a Tetris mood or it's physics based (like Portal or World of Goo). I like some first-person shooters, but usually only if they have some degree of RPG elements like Deus Ex or System Shock 2. I have never played a Battlefield, Call of Duty, or Halo game, and I don't have any interest in ever doing so (not that I wouldn't review games I otherwise don't play if I ever become a professional video game reviewer).

My idea for this blog is to pretty much just write about whatever it is I'm currently playing or otherwise interested in. I switch between projects (a word that is very apt to describe how I approach games) frequently based on what I feel like at the time. Game reviews will be among my posts, but I'll also be taking things in other directions. Maybe I'll just want to talk about what I'm doing, discuss some element of a game, or do some sort of commentary on multiple games. One note I'd like to make is that even though I am a journalist and will be mostly sticking to AP style if only out of habit, I will not be strictly adhering to it while writing here (hence these side thoughts in parentheses; they make writing out what I want to get across much easier for me).

So there it is, my first blog post on 8-bit Smirk. I'll be doing another one soon on how I came up with that name. Hopefully if you made it this far you didn't find my introduction post to be boring, but I'd certainly understand if you did. It was just something I wanted to do to get some background on the record.

Be awesome; stay awesome.

Some content in this post is being used under the fair use exception of copyright law. The Legend of Zelda is copyright of Nintendo. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is copyright of Bethesda Softworks.